Fun Times with Family!

It's time for a picture purge! We had some great holidays and hope you did as well. We had a great time at the Ivins Christmas Party a few weeks before Christmas. Once again Jenna, you did a fabulous job! Here's Lilly with Santa Clause. She did okay. Sophia wanted nothing to do with him and wouldn't even come near him.

Here's the cute nativity kids.

I curled Lilly's hair for the first time a few days before Christmas. As you can tell, she was thrilled about the whole thing.

Here's cute Sophia getting ready to go to her red and green party and preschool. She had such a great time!
We spent Christmas eve at my parents and the girls had a fun time opening their Christmas jammies!Lilly had such a fun time playing with her cute cousin Karen. Here they are enjoying a Christmas Eve snack.

We had a great time opening presents on Christmas morning at our house. Sorry these pictures are blurry

Here's a picture of my favorite Christmas present.

Here's cute Santa Lilly.After opening presents we went to Doug's brothers house for lunch and to exchange gifts. We took a quick stop by Grandma Ivins' and then headed to my parents for more present opening and dinner. My sister-in-law Hiromi and I had a fun time making the Buche De Noel again this year. We ended up making 2 of them and she added some cute santas made out of Strawberries. It was a lot of fun!Here's the traditional family shot. Of course we're not all pictured. There's only 4 of the 8 siblings in this picture.

The day after Christmas we took off in a lot of snow and headed for Arizona. It finally stopped snowing around Panguitch. We decided to take the Vegas way since our regular route was very snow packed. It ended up taking us an hour to get through the Hoover Dam. Apparently the delay is due to this incredible bridge they're building that's supposed to be done in 2010. They were also doing security checks and it literally took us an hour to drive 5 miles. It was incredible. The bridge under consruction was quite a site. It made us really dizzy just looking at it.We finally made it to Arizona and had a great time there. On Saturday a few of us went to the spanish session at the Mesa temple. That was an experience. That afternoonwe had a big reunion with my grandpa's siblings. It was a lot of fun. It was the first time me and my siblings were together in about 8 years. Here we are standing in birth order. Jason, Dylan, Derik, Stuart, Eliza, Melissa, Me, and baby Jeffy. Why am I the shortest one?

Here's uncle Dylan with cute Cakes, Bubs, and Beaners.

4 generations.

On Sunday we went to Tuscon to go to church where my grandma went to church when she was a littl girl. We took a few more family shots outside the temple. Here's the brothers...

and the sisters...

and my mom, dad, grandma and 2 of my dads siblings.

We also got to see the house she grew up in. It's now a preschool but it was fun to see the tiny room where my great grandma raised 13 children. My cute grandma said that she raised 13 children and never raised her voice. That's something to aspire to!After that we went to the cemetary where my grandparents parents are buried. I have a picture with me holding this niece that was taken about 15 years ago so I thought it was time to take another shot with her.

That night we went to my grandma's house for dinner. We all sat around after and asked her questions. It was neat to learn more about her and to have that intimate time with her. On Monday we went hiking in Superstition Mountain and then had a get together that night with my dad's siblings. Overall, it was so great to see so much family! We miss you all and hope you have a happy new year!